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Press Release

GPhA Applauds the Launch of the Congressional Affordable Medicines Caucus

Washington, D.C. (May 12, 2011) – The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) applauds the launch today of the Congressional Affordable Medicines Caucus.

The bipartisan caucus, chaired by Reps. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), will strive to educate the public and members of Congress on how embracing the use of affordable medications can bring down our country’s health care costs, while maintaining the same, high-quality standard of care that Americans rightly expect.

GPhA supports the caucus’s stated goals of increasing the utilization of generic drugs in Medicare and Medicaid — programs that currently are failing to take advantage of the enormous savings offered by generic drugs — and increasing funding for the FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has estimated that even as little as a 2 percent increase in generic utilization by Medicaid would save the program more than $1.3 billion. A 5 percent increase could save nearly $3.3 billion.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 generic drug applications are awaiting FDA action and, as Commissioner Margaret Hamburg recently said, as many as 365 of those applications are related to first-time generic drugs.

With states struggling to reign in their budgets, it is crystal clear that safe, effective and affordable medicines are an integral part of the solution in reducing costs. GPhA commends the Congressional Affordable Medicines Caucus for taking an important step toward reaching this goal.

GPhA represents the manufacturers and distributors of finished generic pharmaceuticals, manufacturers and distributors of bulk pharmaceutical chemicals, and suppliers of other goods and services to the generic industry. Generic pharmaceuticals fill 75 percent of the prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. but consume just 22 percent of the total drug spending. Additional information is available at gphaonline.org.

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